An Investigation of Talk as Interaction at Lower-secondary Schools in Slovakia

Abstract

The paper takes an initial look at communicative language competence in general and then goes on to discuss the interactional component of communicative competence. The paper deals with the function of speaking, known as talk as interaction. It is a human interaction with the purpose to maintain social relationships. Further on, teaching approaches and techniques needed for the meaningful development of the function of speaking talk as interaction are outlined. Interactional speaking and its implementation in live class teaching is the focus of the research conducted at the lower secondary school level in Slovakia. The current study applies qualitative approach for collecting non-numerical data and combines content analyses of two textbooks as well as observations carried out at two lower-secondary schools in Slovakia. Our findings indicate that the analysed textbooks provided number of interaction activities and techniques such as drills, dialogues, role-plays, small talk and chatting activities. Observations confirmed that the teachers tried to promote talk as interaction mainly by reading aloud, dialogues and small talk activities. Several potential situations that could lead to the development of the function talk as interaction were detected. All of them were related to small talk activities on different topics. Based on the research results, we advise including all learners into pair work and small talk activities as well as giving them opportunities for sharing their experiences with their peers.